3: Chapter 3, First Prologue

March 14, 2025, Friday, Sunny, 9 ~ 18°C.

It was four in the morning, and the sky was still dark and gloomy.

The streets of Hangzhou at this hour felt eerily deserted.

The streetlights on both sides cast long, dim yellow strips of light. Occasionally, early-shift trucks roared past, and sanitation workers were already sweeping the streets.

Qiao Yichen stood at the main entrance of the office building. The cold morning wind brushed past him, causing him to shiver slightly, but it also brought him fully awake.

He first looked down at his phone.

The signal was full, and the battery was still at 67%. The phone screen was paused on the map navigation, with the destination clearly marked—Hangzhou Peace International Convention Center (East Gate).

He didn't hesitate any longer.

If that so-called 'intelligence module' just now was merely a hallucination before his death, then the worst outcome would just be making a pointless trip, something akin to a hazy fantasy after pulling an all-nighter working overtime.

But if it was real—

If he missed this chance, it would truly be gone forever.

One of the lessons he learned at the cost of his life in his previous existence was:

A genuine opportunity to change one's destiny never gives you time to verify it repeatedly.

The ride-hailing car arrived three minutes later.

The driver was a middle-aged man whose eyes showed the fatigue of long hours of staying up late. He glanced at Qiao Yichen in the rearview mirror, his gaze lingering for a moment on the slightly worn backpack he carried.

"Going to the Convention Center this early? Even setting up an exhibition doesn't start this early," the driver asked casually.

"Something urgent came up," Qiao Yichen replied simply, leaning back in the seat.

The road was empty, and the city silhouette outside the window rapidly receded, the lights instantly stretching into a blurry line on the glass. The driver was clearly pushing the car to its limit.

Qiao Yichen's fingers unconsciously rubbed the rough fabric of his backpack; his palm was slightly sweaty.

This wasn't nervousness.

It was an instinctive alertness about whether the unknown things would be verified.

Fifteen minutes later, the ride-hailing car stopped by the roadside about a hundred meters from the East Gate of the Convention Center.

"You can't stop here for long. Just walk a bit further ahead, and you'll be there," the driver pointed in the direction.

"Okay, thank you."

Qiao Yichen got out of the car, glanced at the map on his phone to confirm the correct location, and then began walking forward.

His pace wasn't fast; he was even deliberately relaxed, like a passerby who had just wandered in.

But his gaze was exceptionally firm, fixed directly on the target.

The distribution of streetlights around the Convention Center, the potential coverage angles of the surveillance cameras, and the sanitation workers sweeping in the distance... all information was rapidly absorbed into his mind and quickly filed away.

One hundred and thirty-four meters.

He counted silently in his heart.

As he approached, the silhouette of the stone sculpture 'The Pioneer' gradually emerged from the darkness, looking somewhat abstract.

The entire base was built of granite, with edges that were cold, hard, and neat.

His fingers instinctively tapped the stone slab: one, two, three.

Qiao Yichen naturally stopped beside the third paving stone next to the sculpture and squatted down to tie his shoelaces. He tied them deliberately a bit loosely, taking his time with the action, but his fingers on the other hand quietly reached toward the gap between the stone slab and the base.

The gap under the sculpture was quite narrow; it was difficult to fit his whole arm in, allowing him only to probe a short distance down, and it was covered with a thick layer of dust.

After simply fumbling around for a moment, his fingertips touched something hard and cold.

Upon touching the object, Qiao Yichen immediately stopped moving.

Then, he firmly pinched the edge of the object to confirm it once more.

After confirming there was no mistake, he adjusted the angle with his fingers, clamped the object between his index and middle fingers, and secretly exerted force to pull it out of the gap.

The object was less than ten centimeters long, wrapped in a layer of waterproof cloth, but it felt extraordinarily heavy once in his hand.

He didn't examine it closely but instead slid the object into his cuff. Then, as he stood up, he casually dusted off his trouser leg, pretending he had just finished tying his shoelaces.

He then turned and walked toward the bushes on the other side of the plaza.

The light here was very dim, under the trees.

Once there, Qiao Yichen took out the object from his cuff and tore off the aged waterproof oilcloth.

The moment the oilcloth peeled away—

A deep, restrained dark gold color emerged under the dim light.

It was a standard one-hundred-gram gold bar.

Looking closely, the edges were neatly cut, and it was clearly stamped with Au99.9, along with the manufacturer's mark and serial number.

There were no extra markings; it was brand new but carried a feeling that did not belong here.

Qiao Yichen first pinched both ends of the gold bar, then lightly poked the surface with his fingernail.

The characteristic softness of pure gold left a tiny indentation.

It was real.

The moment he confirmed this, a surge of joy welled up in his heart, but he suppressed it deeply.

He just quietly looked at the gold bar in his hand.

"It seems it wasn't a hallucination," he muttered to himself.

It seemed the information from the system intelligence was correct.

This was not a dream.

Nor was it an illusion.

What he held was a real, tangible entity with physical weight.

Qiao Yichen did not immediately put the small 100-gram gold bar back into his backpack.

Instead, he took out his phone, switched it to silent mode, and quickly took pictures of the gold bar from different angles, as well as a close-up of the sculpture and the surrounding environment, all from an inconspicuous vantage point.

Then, he rewrapped the gold bar and pulled open the zippered inner pocket of his backpack, placing the bar inside.

The light sound of the zipper closing seemed exceptionally clear in the empty, quiet morning.

Qiao Yichen didn't leave immediately but stayed in place for a few minutes.

Only then did he emerge from the bushes.

When he walked back toward the main road, he looked like just an ordinary office worker, slightly exhausted from staying up all night.

He hailed a taxi by the roadside.

He got in, and the door closed.

The backpack containing the gold bar rested on his lap.

He inexplicably felt the backpack was a bit heavy.

By the time he arrived downstairs at the company building, the sky was beginning to lighten.

Qiao Yichen hurried to take the elevator upstairs. When he reached his desk, he didn't immediately turn on his computer.

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a minute.

When he opened his eyes again, the screen lit up naturally.

His eyes looked at the proposal, which had already been rejected ten times, still remaining on the computer desktop.

But this time, the way he looked at it was completely different.

Time flew by until seven-thirty in the morning.

The lights in the company's Conference Room A3 were much brighter than the sky outside.

Both sides of the long conference table were densely packed with people. Coffee cups, energy drinks, and disposable tissues were piled messily on the tabletop.

The air was mixed with drowsiness, anxiety, and the slight sour smell of staying up all night. Everyone was the same, having struggled through several sleepless nights.

Qiao Yichen sat in a relatively rear position, placed his laptop on the table, and didn't open it right away.

He knew that calling a meeting at this hour was no longer about "discussing the proposal" in detail; it was about screening people and directly determining the outcome.

The goal was to find the final proposal presentable to Party A before nine o'clock.

So, he waited.

When the conference room door was pushed open—

The company's director, Liu Yanran, walked in.

The moment she entered, he felt a flash of stunning admiration. She was wearing a sharply tailored dark suit, her hair pulled up high, and her overall makeup was clean.

But it couldn't hide the trace of fatigue under her eyes from staying up late.

Her steps were steady. After walking in slowly, she took her seat at the head of the table.

"Let's begin," she glanced at the time. "I only want to see things that can be used immediately."

No pleasantries.

That statement itself carried immense pressure, forcing the slightly sallow faces to barely muster some energy.

The colleague responsible for media spoke first, detailing the deployment rhythm, platform ratio, and budget allocation.

The PPT flipped quickly, dense with data but lacking pauses.

Liu Yanran occasionally nodded while listening but didn't offer much commentary.

The colleague in charge of creative followed, presenting a beautifully articulated concept with ornate vocabulary. But by the end, even he paused, unsure where he had left off.

The conference room fell into a brief silence.

It was a very dangerous kind of silence.

"So—" Liu Yanran stood up, surveying everyone. "What do you think the first question Party A will actually ask us?"

No one dared to answer.

Everyone had their own vague answer to this question in their minds, but none dared to voice it out loud.

Because saying the wrong thing would mean admitting that what the previous speakers presented might not be important at all.

Liu Yanran’s gaze slowly swept across the conference table.

"They will ask: How is your proposal different from others?"

"Or, more directly—"

"Why should it be you?"

She paused.

"Now, who can answer in one sentence?"

The air grew even quieter.

Just then, a voice that wasn't abrupt but exceptionally clear sounded from a position toward the back of the table.

"They won't ask about 'difference' first."

Liu Yanran's gaze paused.

Qiao Yichen had already opened his computer, but he wasn't projecting the screen; he just looked up, his tone even.

"What they are more likely to ask is—"

"Why must they do this right now."

In the conference room, someone subconsciously frowned, feeling that he was 'interrupting.' Others lowered their heads, silently pondering what Qiao Yichen had just said.

Liu Yanran didn't immediately refute him, just looked at him: "Continue."

Qiao Yichen didn't immediately stand up.

Instead, he pushed his laptop forward while seated—the adjustment was small, but it positioned the screen angle perfectly toward Liu Yanran.

After adjusting it, he stood up, but without leaving his seat. He merely leaned slightly to the side, his gaze sweeping over everyone present before finally resting on Liu Yanran's face.

"Actually, there are already many similar products on the market. Party A doesn't lack proposals, nor do they lack creativity."

"What they lack is a reason why they must act now, otherwise they will miss out—just like what I just said, why must they do this thing right now."

He raised his hand, signaling everyone to look at the 'Market Insight' slide, which he had moved forward in the PPT sequence.

"Health anxiety itself is not a new problem, but in the last six months, it has evolved from a 'personal issue' into a social attribute that can be displayed and compared."

At this point, everyone subconsciously looked at the screen.

The structure of this slide was much clearer than what they had heard.

"If we continue to only emphasize function, ingredients, and professional endorsements, it's equivalent to fighting the same battle as all our current competitors."

"And that battle always ends faster with price than with creativity."

Qiao Yichen's tone wasn't aggressive, but every sentence hit the mark.

"So our strategy must change. It's not about 'selling health,' but rather—"

"Turning health into social capital they are willing to actively discuss; that is the social attribute I mentioned."

In the conference room, someone finally showed an expression of contemplation, as if they had understood.

This wasn't being persuaded; it was being enlightened to the existence of another angle.

"This is also why the core strategy was moved up," Qiao Yichen added. "Because if this layer isn't established, the subsequent media, creative, and budget aspects could all be overturned by Party A with a single 'It's unnecessary.'"

After speaking, he stopped. He didn't elaborate with case studies, but waited as if letting everyone digest what he had just said.

"This proposal logic," after a moment, Liu Yanran spoke slowly, "who adjusted it?"

No one below spoke up.

Qiao Yichen didn't try to stand out as the hero; after all, he had already attracted enough attention.

After looking around, she already knew the answer.

"You stay behind," she told Qiao Yichen. Then she turned to the others. "For the rest, quickly revise based on this new idea. But before nine o'clock, I need a complete planning proposal that can be presented directly to Party A. Understood???"

"Got it."

"Understood."

The meeting then ended.

As the crowd dispersed, some people couldn't help but look back at him with complex expressions. Others gave him a thumbs-up as they passed by, acknowledging how sharp his angle was.

Qiao Yichen smiled faintly at the dispersing crowd, then sat back down, his fingers pausing over the keyboard for a moment.

He knew that the victory in this round wasn't about 'ability,' but about the difference in perspective.

...

Time flashed by, and the clock in the lower right corner of the screen jumped to 8:02.

At that moment, his phone vibrated once.

It was a private message.

["Liu Yanran"]: Your judgment on Party A is very close to the direction they privately fed back to us last time. For the nine o'clock meeting, you will come with me to Party A's office.

Qiao Yichen looked at the text and felt a wave of relief.

It seemed his judgment was correct.

He didn't reply with a "Thank you" or make any excessive statements.

He only replied with two words.

["Qiao Yichen"]: Understood.